Still lamb-less

Well the yard looks a mess from all this rain, but all the sheep stood still long enough to get a picture. I was trying to get a few of their enormous bellies, but as soon as they  learned the cookies were gone, everyone scattered. This picture was sort of funny though, everyone looking in different directions. From the front we've got Rain (drop), Olivia, Nina's butt, and all the way in the back is Mellie. Mom was quite sure we'd have babies in all this rain, but still not lambs. 

Olivia's large belly looks to have a dropped a bit, I'm hoping she will be giving birth soon. If history repeats itself we should have twins, too : )

Here's another shot of our pretty little mama, Olivia

We wandered over to give some lunch to the hens and silkies. Donnie's little black hen wanted a closer look before we started feeding them their snacks. She's such a silly hen. 

Donnie had gotten some great work done in the new silkie shed so that we could move a few in. Right now we've got the 6 week old chicks in there along with our newer silkies. 

When we went to feed, Sundance did a little dance around Donnie's feet. I tried to get in on video but he was moving around him much too quickly.. one day I'll get a good one.

This week SHOULD be warmer, we just need to survive this weekend of rain first. Maybe we will get our new lambs with the nice spring weather. Don't worry, we'll make sure we update here immediately! 

Chicken Work

Well, I didn't realize it had been so long since we updated this. I assumed our next post would be full of little lamb photos.. Unfortunately, we are still waiting. This Thursday is the due date estimation, and don't worry I  have informed the girls of this. I'm not sure they were all that worried about it as they chomped on hay and  waited for more grain, spoiled brats.

While we haven't had any new babies born we have had some progress with our few warm days in the past month or so. Thank goodness it's been starting to look more like spring, minus today  of course. 

So, we have added a few new chickens to our flock our the last few months. Two polish will stay and a couple of silkies to go along with our current  few. We decided to add some coop space, and in the words of my old swim coach, "go big or go home." We've done just that by repurposing an old shed that was left empty. With the help of a few Amish we got it into a great place near all our other chickens, and now the work inside is starting. Putting up nesting boxes, fixing up some good roosts, and closing off half to keep  two separate groups in there. Here is Donnie and Mom checking out whats going on in there before we made any decisions. 

Mom got some great work done outside. Peas are planted, tons of plants are started inside, so she (and all of the chickens) were turning over some of the beds outside. We've been moving in some of that great aged manure into the garden areas so we have excellent soil to grow in.

She also got some leaf clean up. She's SO lucky to have the puppies helping. Christian loves laying on anything on the ground. He's a little weirdo, as soon as I put his bed down he's on it, or if part of a blanket is on the floor, he's in heaven! Mom was not so amused.

Miss Maisy, our wry neck Buff was VERY helpful during all of our work outside. She checked all the dropped screws and tacks and walked around all the fencing as we started to put it up. As you can see, she got nice and close to the camera when I stopped working to take her picture. I believe she was telling me to get back to work. Slave driver..

Eggs

Our chickens have slowly been starting back up with their laying. We've got a few mix girls that were born here this past spring. They are both black with hints of blue or green. The one, I swear shines a little purple! She's beautiful. Well they are Ameraucana x brown layers so they have olive eggs. Our first olive eggs! I got a picture of one compared to one of our regular tinted eggs. You can really tell the difference against this one.

Hopefully by spring we will be back in full egg laying mode, right now it takes a few days to lay a dozen, but soon we'll get a dozen or more a day! It's about time, I've been threatening to turn them into stew for months, unfortunately they know I'm all talk..
I got a few pictures of our lovely olive egg layers.. figured I'd make them bigger so you could see the color a little more.

 This little girl is our AmeraucanaX Cuckoo Maran mix. She has some purple, blue, and green in her feathers. It's easier to see in the sun, but she just refused to pose properly for me in the sun..
To the left was her giving me angry looks for chasing her around while great snacks were on the ground. I brought out pancake, banana bread, veggie sticks, and mushrooms. She was not happy I kept disturbing her.

Obviously, since i was trying to take pictures, T-rex had to check me out and make sure I wasn't bothering his hens too much. He cracks me up, but is an excellent rooster. 

Since I had previously written some about our wry neck silkie hen, Maisy, I figured I would show a picture of exactly what i meant by "star gazing" Here she is checking me out when I surprised them. She doesn't do too well with surprises, I should have warned them I was coming. She's really silly and completely independent. Just every once in a while when she gets nervous her neck goes back like this.

Winter Work

Got a little work done these past few days, you know, because it's necessary on a farm, especially with this "snow storm" coming.  Cleaning or filling waters, fixing electric, checking buildings, chopping more wood, and moving over hay. It's not so fun in the snow and ice, but the our sweet animals make it a little less awful. Phantom was being nosey, Beau got his blanket off to roll around, and Remy was watching our every move. So I got a few pictures, while poor Donnie did most of the manual labor.. thank goodness we have him! I couldn't lift some of these things anway.. The extra water trough we have in the sheep pen had frozen completely solid. I couldn't believe it! So Donnie helped me out, flipping it over and cleaning it, clearly it hadn't been touched in quiet a while. Even more amusing, that huge ice block is still there. Has anyone else had this problem? Just large chunks of ice around the property? Our chickens get water in black rubber bowls that empty easily, but they just keep freezing. So now we have about twelve perfect ice circles from the past week out there. Isn't it going to get up above freezing soon?!

A very happy Beau, finally free of a blanket rolling around.

Poor left out Rem, just watching us chop some more wood. He just didn't understand why we wouldn't let him in the field with us. 

An Excellent Birthday

We had a very fun groundhogs day here on the farm. Not at all because of the super bowl, but my quarter century mark! This year, I got the best sort of gift, new silkies : ) Yes, that's right, some chickens for my birthday, but these four are absolutely beautiful and just full of personality. First up, here I am holding Sundance and Cassidy.. We left behind Butch, don't worry though, he has a whole harem of ladies. These are splash silkies, which we have never had before. We'll post more close ups of these two, they are absolutely beautiful, and even more social than some of our other birds. 

So we went to meet our two new silkies at a wonderful local farm. *Small side note, this was after quite a bit of communication back and forth. During this time I had realized I had found another "crazy chicken lady" just like us! She had mentioned her wry neck buff silkie, Maisy. And, during our conversation she had mentioned we could take her and her pal Lily if we wanted to. Well, not wanting to get in over our heads we talked it out quite a bit.. and big surprise, got there with enough crates to bring home all four, you know, just in case. Honestly though, getting there and meeting them, it was hard not to love them! Maisy was obviously nervous, which causes her to "stargaze" ( the perfect name for it) When she does this, her head goes back, I mean all the way against her back. It's weird to watch up she isn't uncomfortable at all and still completely independent. If you haven't realized yet, we are suckers for those "special" pets. So, we obviously brought her home too. Yes, four new silkies to add to our flock. These four will go with Nugget, Smokey, and Boo. We intend to make a nice new silkie container for them with a nice new run next to the garden. 

Fall Activities part 3

Thank goodness we keep Donnie around, we spent hours chopping wood. It really wasn't too bad, we just had quite a bit to be cut for winter. Good looking pile of wood, huh? 

I had a few of pictures of Luna on my phone I had to share. It's so cold out, I don't have anything green to share! So, here she is with our nice little Christmas tree. This small couch has become hers.. It's hard to say no to a dog so stinkin' cute.

For a while we had three chicks on the side porch. These were the ones born in October. Sweetest little things, three was the perfect number to socialize and spoil. Here they are staying warm in Donnie's enormous shoe. As you can see you can fit at least three in one shoe. 

We also had a family friends wedding in the fall. Here is the whole family all dressed up. It's nice to do every once in a while : )

Fall Activities part 2

We try to make sure we keep a good balance of fun and work around here. Not all of us are able to do it.. but, we've had a lot of down time down on the Delaware Bay. My aunt has a nice boat in during the summer, so we try to get there whenever we can. It's beautiful and calm down there. Days it's not too windy we get out to crab or fish. We've mastered our maryland style crab recipe.

Right around Halloween we had a gathering at the farm with friends and family. We made a nice dinner and all sat around chatting until pumpkin carving began. Then things got pretty serious, which is obvious from these masterpiece jack-o-lanterns. 

I've also had a little bit of time to ride this beautiful boy. He's such a sweet horse and with time has come to trust me enough to jump on him bareback! We were all the way out in the back of the property here. He has become a very nice addition to our ponies.

Last but not least of our summer fun, was Thanksgiving. We have a few regular pictures of family and the big meal, but I figured this one was the best. Mom made the pumpkin pie the night before so there was less work the next morning. Unfortunately for her, she finished late at night and we forgot to put it up high enough. Our big white fluffy, Christian, figured this out and took full advantage. He ate every drop of that filling! I'm sure it was just too delicious



We are REALLY looking forward to getting back outside once it's warmer. It's just no fun to try to play outside during this cold we've had. 

Fall Activities part 1

Well we had TONS of great veggies and fruits this summer. What we don't grow ourselves, we buy as local as possible. I'm talking road stands around the corner. There are some great secret spots down by us with inexpensive, organics that you can buy in bulk. We go a little crazy with freezing and canning these delicious treats.. Tomatoes, salsa, peaches, apples, tomato sauce, apple sauce, and grape jam are all canned throughout the year. We have eggplant, asparagus, broccoli, eggplant, peaches, beans, peas, and leafy greens frozen. Good thing we got a bigger chest freezer!

 One of our batches of peaches

 Top left shows most of our canned goods. The other two pictures were random baskets we picked this summer for meals. It's hard to not miss these days. Fresh berries, still warm from the hot sun.. Crisp peas, a pepper you can bite into like an apple, cucumbers you don't even have to wash to enjoy! Who can beat that!? My mouth is watering just thinking about all the great tastes of summer!

Mum saved lots of seeds from our garden for next year. All of our melons did wonderful this past season.

 Jen invited mom to sell a few things at a nice event at her work. She set up a table, took local apples, honey, and apple sauce. We brought one of our dogs, met interesting people, and really enjoyed ourselves. There was also a great group called Howling woods farm. They rescue and care for wolves and wolf hybrids. It was very informative and we got contact with these amazing creatures!

 This wasn't our best summer for being on top of our garden.. I know this, but it was still a beautiful garden. Here's two shots of different angles. The first shows a line of our enormous sunflowers all lined up against the chicken pen. When these started to die the chickens would fly up and pull the flowers down. They absolutely LOVE the seeds.